Disharmonious Chinese ethnic business: intergroup stereotypes among Chinese migrant employees in Australia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on perceptual divisions in the ethnic businesses and how PRC-Chinese and Taiwanese employees navigate and contest ethnic stereotypes within Chinese workplaces in Australia. Literature has highlighted internal ethnicity in the overseas Chinese ethnic businesses; but there has been little examination of the structural and symbolic aspects that lead Chinese migrant employees to generate specific ethnic stereotypes of other subgroups. Relying on sixteen months of fieldwork and in-depth interviews with thirty-two Chinese migrant employees, this article shows that the stereotyping of ethnic Chinese bosses as an integrated group and sub-ethnic stereotypes of PRC-Chinese or Taiwanese employers are symbiotic. Chinese ethnic workplaces in Australia are internally divided along sub-ethnic lines and refracted through employment relationship. Meanwhile, group interactions in the workplace reveal an awareness of ethnic differences and present specific ethnic stereotypes of others.